Two men have been arrested for allegedly making and selling methamphetamine, or meth, police said Sunday.
Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it has detained the men surnamed Song and Park on charges of cooking at least 60 grams of meth in their apartment in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, and selling the illicit drug to online buyers, from November 2014 until last month.
In doing do, they made 10 million won ($8,500), police said.
Four wholesale drug distributors have been booked without detention for providing the two men with pseudoephedrine ― a key meth ingredient. One of the distributors, surnamed Kim, used to work with Song at a pharmaceutical company, police noted.
Police said they collected beakers, conical flasks and 10 grams of meth as evidence from their apartment.
During the interrogation, Song said he planned the crime because he has heavy debts. He said he ended up further in debt after underwriting his friend's debt.
Song and Park said they traded meth online, using someone else's phone numbers and bank accounts.
They said they learned how to make the drug from foreign websites, over which Korean law enforcement has no control.
In fact, such information can be easily found with a simple Google search. As personal or medical use of meth is legal in some countries, such information is generated legally, but it may be accessed in places where it is not legal, such as Korea.
To interpret the English information, they said they used online translation services.
They said it took about 20 days to make 4 grams of meth.
According to Pusan National University's research team earlier this year, meth is the most common illegal drug in Korea and more than 400 kilograms of the highly addictive stimulant is consumed here annually.
According to the Korean National Police Agency, 3,370 people were apprehended on drug charges in the first six months of this year.